My troll hunter is running into Tarren Mill to turn in some quests when I catch what appeared to be the climax of a flame war, some sort of attack on the target's vocabulary, ironically using many mispelled words, unexceptional except for their offensive combination. The others responded with fewer words, but still, nothing which I want to read.

My first instinct was to point out the crude words of the first person. But, that seemed unproductive. So instead I hit my question mark button and oh look, report an issue. That sounds just right. The report was something like "I rode into Tarren Mill and so and so was saying 'this' and also these two other people were being offensive as well."

So now I feel a bit like a tattle tale. That strikes me as stupid. I'm not the person being immature here, being offensive in /say. When I say offensive, I don't mean "oh the poor children, they shall be corrupted!" I mean that I don't want to hear that sort of stuff when I'm playing, or at least I want to hear it on my terms, talking with friends, not overhearing bits of childish flame wars.

Of course I don't think kids should have to read that either. This isn't to say that I think WoW should be child-safe, since that would cause some serious problems with my ability to use violence as the answer to almost any problem. However WoW does have some young people. Even if it is rated teen, I don't think teens need any more streams of offensive material. But anyway, this is about me and not wanting to have to hear the constant crap spewed by childish people who cannot think of better ways to express their problems, or even better, just not say anything at all.

The very concept of a tattle tale is stupid. It's a bad thing for children to learn, to think "oh well I shouldn't say anything because that's a bad thing to do." Our world needs more whistle blowers, more people pointing out the bad things we all do. Maybe we'd do them less if there wasn't a society structured around not saying anything.

In unrelated news, an 80 hunter game me a crappy green hat which was less crappy than nothing. His tabard looked interesting so I inspected, and was then surprised to see a red sword of courage. I suppose I should have said something, but I wasn't thinking quickly enough to come up with a polite way to say that it's almost useless.

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comments:

The difference between a "tattle tale" and someone doing the right thing is intention. A tattle-tale is "telling on someone" for attention, so the person they're letting know of the situation will reward them with some sort of positive reinforcement (i.e. pat on the head, a cookie, etc.). The person doing the right thing is doing it for the betterment of the immediate society; to correct an issue that conflicts with his morals.

The two may seem the same on the outside, but the motive behind each defines them.

It's a lot easier to just right-click on their names and select "Report Spam" if people are being offensive. It's not just for gold-farmers, it's so that you can quickly and easily alert the GMs that someone said something they shouldn't have. As an added bonus, it will put that person on ignore for the rest of the session.

I never hesitate to report people if they're being offensive in that kind of situation. It's not because I think children will see (technically speaking, nobody under 13 should be playing this game anyway, but of course we all know they do anyway) but because *I* don't want to see it. Which is why most of the time, I keep all public channels turned off unless there's a specific group quest in the zone that I need to find help with.

@Ferraro Unfortunately people aren't very good at judging intent, or don't care to, when labeling others.

@Kiryn I wasn't are that the report spam worked on offensive people, I thought it was only for gold spammers.

@P You're a piece of @$*%ing #&$# with a &%*@$ of a mother. Was that really no longer offensive just because a few words are missing?? Besides, the filter doesn't work when the idiots can't even swear with proper spelling. It's hardly an opt-in when the opt-out doesn't actually get you out.